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gore

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The OED, Merriam-Webster and Barnhart give gore "blood", gore "a triangular piece" and gore "to pierce" numbered entries of their own,[1][2][3] and Ayto notes that only the last two are perhaps ultimately related.[4]

Pronunciation

  • /ɡɔː/, /ɡoɹ/[5]

gore1 blood

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English gor (“dung, dirt, filth”),[1][6][3][7] from Proto-Germanic *gurą.[5] Its cognates are goor (“filth, mud”) and modern goor (“dingy, foul”), gor (“animal dung”) and gor (“cud, slimy matter”);[1][6][3][8] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford also relate gor and gôr (“pus”).[9][7] Old English also had gyre (“dung”), from the same base.[3][8] The further origin is uncertain:[6][3] Merriam-Webster connects it with gearu (“ready”), the source of yare,[2] and Weekley wondered about a link with gären (“to ferment”).[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dung or filth of any kind: the OED's first example is in the Old English Corpus Glossary,[1] and Barnhart dates Old English gor to about 725, in Exodus, and the Middle English form gore to about 1150.[11]

Semantic evolution

The sense "blood that has been shed and has thickened" is first recorded in 1563, in the Mirror for Magistrates,[1][11] often in the phrase blood and gore, which has a Dutch parallel in bloed en goor;[3][1] Etymonline notes gore-blood a little earlier, in the 1550s.[6] The new sense was used chiefly of blood spilled in battle,[6][3] and Weekley explains its poetic use as a rendering of cruor (“shed blood”).[10] Johnson (1755) defined the word as blood, and especially clotted blood, quoting Spenser and Dryden.[12] The old meaning "dung, dirt" became obsolete except in dialect,[1][7] and Merriam-Webster still labels it dialectal British.[2] Weekley saw the older sense in gorbelly, a fat paunch, and gorcrow, the carrion crow.[10] From 1799 the word was also used humorously for ordinary blood, as in a letter of Coleridge.[1] The adjective gory goes back to a Scottish gorrie "bloody" of about 1480,[3] and in recent use the noun stands for bloodshed and killing as shown on screen or in print.[13][2]

Timeline

  • Old English – gor, dung, dirt.[1][3]
  • c. 1150 – Middle English gore.[3]
  • c. 1480 – Scottish gorrie, bloody.[3]
  • 1550s – gore-blood.[6]
  • 1563 – blood shed and clotted.[1][3]
  • 1741 – hardened rheum from the eyes (until 1808).[1]
  • 1799 – humorously, blood.[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. Blood that has been shed, especially when clotted.
  2. (informal) Violent bloodshed and slaughter, especially when shown in graphic detail in a film or book: The reviewer warned readers about the amount of gore in the final scene.
  3. (dialect) Dirt or filth; dung.

Word family

  • gory
  • gorehound

gore2 triangular piece

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gore, inherited from Old English gāra (“angular point, corner of land, promontory”),[1][6][3][14] from Proto-Germanic *gaizô.[6][5] Its cognates include gāra, ghere (modern geer), gēro (modern Gehre) and geiri.[1][7][3] The word is related to gār (“spear”), the source of gar and of the first part of garlic, the link being the triangular shape of a spearhead;[1][9][8][15] Etymonline traces both to a PIE word for a stick or spear, *ǵʰaisós.[6][5] The Old High German word passed into the Romance languages, whence English gyron.[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A point of land or a promontory, in Alfred's translation of Orosius (before 899).[1][11]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was applied to the front part of a skirt, wider at the bottom, and to the lap of a gown: Barnhart and the OED date this to about 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale.[11][1][6] The sense "triangular piece of cloth", used to make a garment wider at one point than another, is recorded from about 1325,[1][9] and the verb "to cut into gores, to furnish with gores" from 1548.[1][2][3] On land, gore named a wedge-shaped strip at the side of an irregular field from 1523,[1][7] and in America a strip or tract left between larger divisions from 1650;[1][7] Etymonline notes the New England use for a strip left out when townships were surveyed, and Merriam-Webster an unorganized part of a county in Maine and Vermont.[6][2] In heraldry a gore is a charge bounded by two curved lines (1562).[1] From 1796 it also named each of the curved triangular pieces that make up a globe, a balloon or an umbrella.[1][10] In dialect the land sense survives from Scotland to Somerset, for the short ridges at the corner of an irregular ploughed field,[16] and Weekley cites the London street name Kensington Gore.[10]

Timeline

  • before 899 – a point of land, a promontory.[1][11]
  • c. 1250 – the front part of a skirt.[1][3]
  • c. 1325 – a triangular piece of cloth in a garment.[1]
  • 1523 – a wedge-shaped strip at the side of a field.[1]
  • 1548 – verb: to cut into gores.[1][2][3]
  • 1562 – (heraldry) a charge bounded by curved lines.[1]
  • 1650 – a strip of land between larger divisions (chiefly US).[1]
  • 1796 – a segment of a globe, balloon or umbrella.[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A tapering or triangular piece of cloth sewn into a skirt, sail or other article to vary its width.
  2. One of the curved, tapering sections that make up a globe, balloon or umbrella.
  3. A small triangular piece of land, or (chiefly US) a strip of land lying between larger divisions such as townships.

Verb

  1. To cut into a tapering shape, or to make with gores: She gored the skirt so that it flared at the hem.

gore3 to pierce

Etymology

The verb is goren, with an early Scots form gorren.[2][3] The American Heritage and Merriam-Webster derive it, probably, from gore, gare (“spear”), gār,[14][2][6][17] but the OED, while granting that this fits the sense, thinks the Scots form gorre tells against it,[1] and Hoad, Barnhart and the Shorter Oxford call the origin unknown or uncertain.[9][3][7] Weekley, who also doubts the spear, compared an obsolete jurre (“to butt”) and gorrette (“a jolt, a thump”).[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To pierce or stab deeply with a sharp weapon: Barnhart dates it to before 1400,[3] Etymonline to about 1400,[6] and the OED's first example is from the alliterative Wars of Alexander (before 1400–1450).[1]

Semantic evolution

The specific sense, of a bull, ox or other horned animal piercing with its horns, is first recorded about 1530, in Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry,[1][7] and it is now the usual one; the general sense "to stab deeply" became obsolete except in this use.[1][7] The verb was used without an object from about 1632, in Middleton and Webster.[1] In British black slang it was revived for stabbing someone with a knife, in a novel of 2001 set in 1981.[18]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – to pierce or stab deeply.[1][6][3]
  • c. 1530 – of a horned animal, to pierce with the horns.[1]
  • c. 1632 – used without an object.[1]
  • 2001 – (UK black slang) to stab with a knife.[18]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. Of an animal, to pierce or wound with a horn or tusk: The farmer was gored by a young bull.
  2. (rare) To pierce or stab deeply with a pointed weapon.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  5. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  18. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com